top of page
Writer's pictureCaitlin

The Sonnets, Part One (Intro)



Scholars have a lot to say about The Sonnets. You poke one with a pin and they burst with a plethora of philosophizing on their form and subject and opposing theories about why they were even written. Did Mary, the second Countess of Southampton commission William to write poems to convince her wayward son Henry to quit his adventuring and libertine lifestyle and settle down and make babies for the family already? Did the author fall deliriously in love with the guy in the process and continue writing ever more until he one day decided he liked getting easy sex from a comely brothel woman? Were these published so Shakespeare could cash in on some work done while the playhouses were shut down during plague or were they printed without authorization? If you read enough about how to read this stuff, you realize that it's similar to the situation with quantum physics: if you claim you know how it works, you don't know how it works.


Sonnets became au courant just as Shakespeare came into the world (lucky for him) and he happened to be so naturally adept at the form. They are best consumed aurally, so people were having fun orally presenting them to their friends for funzies. It was the cool thing to do. Although there are some hints in his plays that Shakespeare may have rolled his eyes at how people composed obligatory sonnets every time they had a romantic notion, here he is churning out theses things like it's a bodily function. Perhaps he felt the same way about everyone and their brother writing sonnets as I do about everyone thinking they can cook everything in a crockpot. It's absurd. Not everyone should be writing these things and macaroni and cheese cannot work in a crockpot, Carol. If you want bland soggy pasta like you get from a can of Chef Boyardee, be my guest, you Insta-Pot basic bitch.


The essential facts are thus:


1) There are 154 of them

2) The first 126 are known as "the fair youth" poems (1-17 are set off by the sudden declaration of love made in the most famous 18th)

3) 127-152 compose the "dark lady" sequence

4) They were published in a quarto in 1609 that also included A Lover's Complaint

5) William used sonnets in his plays all the time and sprinkled them throughout

6) They are meant to rhyme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and if you read one and it doesn't rhyme, it's because you need to adopt Original Pronunciation (OP) to make it work


I spent this first week just reading the lengthy intro in The Arden edition I picked up as well as listening to all the commentary of various scholars and performers included in the Sonnets app. I cannot overemphasize how invaluable this latter resource is to anyone interested in a deep dive into these poems (and Shakespeare in general) because a simple silent reading does them no justice whatsoever and having this collection of experienced performers reciting them in a passionate, deliberate manner is a treasure trove to behold. It allows each piece blossom and resonate and reveal the quirky idiosyncrasies of their deceptively impenetrable beauty.


Most of the Arden intro was as dry as a fresh NASA-issued maximum absorbency garment. Yet, there were a few dollops of memorable factoids, such as the bemusing section that recounts the obvious-when-you-point-it-out numerology embedded in the printing order. Like, did you know that technically, there are only 153 sonnets (one is written wrong), and 153 is the number of fish Simon and Peter captured in their "miraculous draught" without breaking their net (John, 21.11)? Also, several sonnets allude to more basic things like the minutes in an hour (#60) or weeks in the year (#52) or days of a woman's menstrual cycle (there are 28 of the "dark lady" poems). Sure why not.


For the longest time, people chalked up all the obviously homosexual language to that classical tradition of men adoring other men in that way only men can adore. But compare the 126 poems dedicated to the dude to the few dedicated to the lady and it's plain that he's taking the piss out of hetero sexual relations. There's even that whole mishegoss about how critics from the Victorian era onward (until 1985) didn't want to acknowledge the bisexual/homosexual themes so apparent in the sonnets simply because Oscar Wilde LOVED them so much. Oscar had the last laugh in the end anyway, and it's immortalized with that exquisite sculpture of him in Dublin. Now no one can wipe that smirk of his face.


At least I am assured that the poems themselves are far more stimulating than the commentary, because as Don Paterson says, "they're too sweaty, they're too feverish, they're too crazed, [the author]'s way too much in love for this to be a platonic affair." In other words, the sonnets are gay as Christmas. It's the most wonderful time of the year!


Oscar, thinking about Shakespeare's sonnets

1 view0 comments

Comentários


bottom of page